Altar, Sand, Fox, Guns, Wait, Fox?

Having lost his guns in a bet on the game of Tower he’d played only hours earlier, Love and Terror had been fuming in a shitty bar in a shitty little town somewhere in a desert, drinking away his sorrows. He’d been nursing his current glass of now-tasteless liquor for the past thirty minutes, listening to almost no one before his ears picked up on two men talking about the weird mage he’d lost his precious firearms to. They spoke of how they’d been conned by the man earlier in the day, and, in a strangely familiar way. It wasn’t too long before he’d realized that he too had been conned, and out of his guns at that, and set off to go find the man who’d unfairly taken his firearms.

-

Sneaking in, of course, was the easy part. Because all sneaking was the easiest thing in the world by definition: no one living could see you to tell anyone else about it. Now, incapacitated or worse, all the cultists on the way had no way of recounting to anybody else what had happened to them or who’d come in or what they’d come in for. It was at the fall of the twelfth cult-loving guard on the way that Love began to realize that that miscreant might have something to hide aside from his ill-gotten gains won in fraudulent hands of cards.

Finding his guns was a bit of a more difficult matter. The compound was large and sprawling, far too much ground to cover without finding things that weren’t what he was looking for. Some sort of altar in one (religious cult? Wait, were there other types of cults?), another room with a bunch of red sand with black shards in it (someone really aught to get to cleaning this place, even the sand’s dirty), a kitsune tied up and blindfolded (haven’t seen many kitsune around here), another room with a bunch of stolen weapons (wait, why were they tied up?). Having found his guns among the pile of weapons (and maybe a new knife), Love decided to circle back to that tied up kitsune, thinking it was better to check in on them rather than be too worried about what sort of things he might be interrupting.

Back in the room with the kitsune, Love spent a second or two considering exactly how he was supposed to go forward from here. Kitsune weren’t from here, how might she answer his questions if she didn’t speak the language? And worse yet, he wasn’t dressed for introductions or in fact any company at all. The first impression might make her worse off for trusting him even if she did understand! He paced back and forth for a solid minute before deciding that closing the door behind him might be his best start. Getting caught wasn’t exactly beneficial if it was some sort of hostage situation.

Love waited another moment before taking off the blindfold, forgetting to announce himself in advance. Of course, the kitsune startled both at being touched and at the sight of a tiefling in shabby sailor’s attire in the middle of the continent. Yoko wondered how far she’d been moved to be encountering coastal folk; Love wondered if she was albino, or grey. They both looked one another over for a beat or two before Love remembered his manners, and introduced himself.

“I’m Love and Terror, and I’m here to rescue you. That is, if you want to be rescued, and are in need of rescuing,” he said, absolutely confident that this was possible, easy, and a normal way to introduce yourself.

“How did you even know I was here?” Yoki asked in a hushed sort of amazement, not wanting to alert any of her captors if they were nearby. They both were and certainly weren’t, but Yoko couldn’t possibly have known they were unconscious outside.

“Well, I didn’t really. You see, I came to get these,” he said, holding up his guns for a second before re-holstering them.

“See, some man about ye’ tall with robes took them from me unfairly in a game of cards this morning, and once I found out about it I decided to track him down to get back my guns. And then I saw how big this place was, and how many guards there were, and decided against trying to find him to confront him until I at least had my guns to confront him with. While wandering around the place trying to find them, I saw you, and then once I got my guns, I circled back to see if you were actually in any danger or if you intended to be tied up like that in here, and I think that about catches us up,” Love rambled.

“You came back for me?” the kitsune asked, surprised. “I’ve been held here as a slave almost my entire life! I didn’t think I’d ever have a chance to escape. Where are we? I last remember being at the border of Bakhduat; I can’t remember the cultists having moved us any closer to the coast.”

“Well, if my map’s right – and I think it is – then we’re still at the border. But nevermind that, we’ve got to get going,” the tiefling said, cutting her free of the other ties on her. Those fellows at the edge of the compound might start waking up at any minute and telling other people about having been knocked out, and that’d defeat the whole purpose of having tried to do this by stealth at all.

“We’re not near the coast? Then why are you dressed like that?” Yoko asked, being dragged along through the compound as they made their escape – Yoko fleeing to freedom; Love going back to his ship to warn the others about this swindler and his slaving deeds.

“I’ll explain later!” Love said, gun in one hand and Yoko’s hand in the other. Judging by the yelling and running behind them, those guards had certainly woken up. Oh well, what was running away but a bit of cardio.